Utilization of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) is rapidly increasing in private, commercial, and military applications. These aircraft are powered aerial vehicles capable of flight either under human control or autonomously, and may be designed to function as traditional rotary wing, multi-rotor, or fixed-wing platforms. UAVs are frequently deployed in efforts related to search and rescue, meteorological assessments, traffic surveillance, agricultural crop monitoring, and others, and are capable of performing highly diverse and increasingly complicated missions. Mechanisms for safe and effective launching is a significant area of current interest and a variety of means have been employed, including horizontal take-off and landing (HTOL) when a prepared surface is available, catapulted or zero-length rocket-powered launches when runways are precluded, and vertical take-off and landing (VTOL). In generally limited cases hand-launching may be employed if the UAV is sufficiently light and has a sufficiently low stall speed.
A developing mission area that is of particular interest to many entities in the defense and commercial sectors is that of UAV swarming, which requires multiple UAVs to be launched in a relatively short period of time. Under these scenarios, the launcher must provide sufficient force for launch in a relatively fast cycle in order to maximize the usability of the entire swarm once airborne. Further, if such a launch is intended from relatively remote areas, the launcher needs to provide this with relatively compact, transportable design and with a relative minimum of force-bearing components to enhance reliability. Additionally and ideally, the launcher should additionally require a minimum of consumables such as compressed air canisters or other motive means, in order to enhance its overall portability and operational independence.
Provided here is a UAV launcher operating a catapulted shuttle where one or more rail systems, typically at least two, provide motive force to the shuttle assembly through the use of tensioned elastic members. When a plurality of rail systems is present, the elastic members are independently tensioned within each rail system in order to equally partition the overall resulting force acting on the shuttle assembly during launch, in order to maximize possible cycling of the system manner which avoids excessive hysteresis and inefficiency introduced through use of larger components typically found in single rail launching systems. Additionally, equal partitioning of the resultant force across all rail systems in a direction generally parallel to the axes of the rail channels mitigates any misalignment tendencies during launch which might otherwise occur in a multiple rail launch system where the overall resultant force is applied at a single location on the shuttle assembly. The UAV launcher disclosed herein provides for the rapid launch of multiple UAVs safely, effectively, and in quick succession, and provides a compact design enhancing portability and allowing for relatively independent operation.
These and other objects, aspects, and advantages of the present disclosure will become better understood with reference to the accompanying description and claims.